Personhood Initiative Will Not Be Voted On

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Mississippians will not vote on a new ballot initiative that would declare life begins at conception.

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office says the initiative’s sponsors missed a Wednesday deadline to submit petitions to get the proposal on the November 2015 ballot. Because of that, the initiative died.

The proposal would have been nearly identical to a ballot initiative that 58 percent of Mississippi voters rejected in November 2011.

Personhood USA and other abortion opponents started a new petition drive in spring 2013, and they had a year to gather signatures from at least 107,216 Mississippi registered voters.

Felicia Brown-Williams, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Southeast, says the new initiative, like the old one, “would have allowed the government to interfere in personal and complex health care decisions.”